Melanie Monique Rose spoke about her work, her heritage and her vision at a Humboldt Gallery workshop gathering on Thursday night. The Métis artist stood amidst her colourful felt beadwork emblazoning the walls of the Gallery. The workshop introduced novice artists the felt work that is the anchor of her exhibition, “The Flower People”, on until April 22.

Rose explained her Métis Ukrainian Heritage which stems from grandparent settlers near Ituna and her Scottish and Métis fur trader heritage that dates to her ancestors’ affiliation with the Red River Settlement and the 1885 Rebellion at Batoche. 

For Rose, the experience of talking about her work and connecting with people is part of the Reconciliation effort. Having experienced racism, she says her family has learned and grown in a resolve to embrace and preserve her Métis culture, both for herself and for her family. 

“‘The Flower People’ is a story about me, my family and my connection to the land,” Rose explained. “All of these pieces have a story, and some of them have many stories, like peeling the layers of an onion.”

One such work was an intricately decorated capote, a wool coat often designed as camouflage in the snow. The work, with antler bone buttons, had a nod to her father’s hunting heritage,and it told a story of connection to her ancestry. The floral design was perfectly indicative of the stylized bead work that earned the Métis craftspeople the name “The Flower People.” Rose spoke of the interesting cultural fusion between her Ukrainian upbringing and her later discovered Scottish-Métis ancestry. 

“I think that Ukrainian and Métis is a pretty Saskatchewan identity. One of the things I’ve seen quite a bit is the Kokum scarf or the babushka that ties the two together as far as the visual, along with the use of florals. I incorporate that into my work all the time - thus ‘The Flower People’.”

Her work allowed Rose to connect her own heritage with others from around the world, even a family collection to Palestine and a nation of people displaced by the political fabric of the past. The Métis have also been known as the road allowance people owing to the “in-between” state of their having no Treaty rights and having been shunned by European settlers. She likened the situation to that of Palestinian people displaced from their original homeland, a circumstance Rose became acutely aware of through a family marriage. Her work always carries with it a narrative quality and a message of acceptance, reconciliation, appreciation of beauty and stewardship of the land. She hopes that those stories are conveyed to those who view the exhibit. 

“I hope that most people who come in here are already gathering a story. It’s maybe making them think of the crocuses, with their family and the first flowers of spring. Every single piece of my work has various layers of story and meaning to it. While there are words with the displays, the work has the energy of story within it as well.”

Those who stayed for the workshop delved deeper into the materials, the history, the iconography and the actual craftwork to design their own stories. Be sure to see this moving exhibit before it closes on April 22.